They both laughed, and the girl looked up at him through her tears. A faint light of dawn showed through from without.
"And you haven't heard it all yet. I'll tell you—it's all different from anything else—right from the beginning. I came here a way you'd never dream—by way of the river, and past the jaws of death."
"What—what do you mean?"
And he told her what had passed among the rapids that night, when the floating timber jammed against the Whirlstone Rock.
"And then we get locked in here, to make it unlike anything else all through. And that's how I love you, Pansy—so that I have to come to you through the rapids at night, and stay with you behind barred doors. But are you mine, my own? You haven't said so yet."
"Am I? Oh, Olof, how can you ask!" And she twined her arms lovingly round his neck.
* * * * *
The growing flush of dawn stole through the curtains, spreading a faint gleam of rose on the girl's white arms.
"Red—red is all that is beautiful in the world," nodded the fuchsia to the balsamine.
The sun rose over the far-curving slopes on either side of the river, filled his lungs with the freshening coolness of the night, and drank his morning cup of glistening dew. A light mist still hung over the riverbed.